Untitled Flashcards Set

Procedural Memory

The gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or 'knowing how' to do things.

Prospective Memory

Remembering to do things in the future.

Long-Term Potentiation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation, believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Short-Term Memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Executive Functions

Higher order thinking processes that include planning, organizing, inhibition, and decision-making.

Algorithm

A step-by-step method of problem solving that guarantees a correct solution.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently.

Representative Heuristic

A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case.

Availability Heuristic

Making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Gambler's Fallacy

The belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn't occurred recently.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

People make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Creativity

The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Divergent Thinking

Expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions).

Convergent Thinking

Narrow the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Explicit Memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and 'declare'.

Episodic Memory

The collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place.

Semantic Memory

A network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world.

Implicit Memory

Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection.

Working Memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information.

Working Memory Model

An explanation of memory used when working on a task, with each store being qualitatively different.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

A component of working memory where we create mental images to remember visual information.

Long-Term Memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, including knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Multi-Store Model

An explanation of memory that sees information flowing through a series of storage systems.

Sensory Memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Central Executive

The part of working memory that directs attention and processing.

Phonological Loop

The part of working memory that holds and processes verbal and auditory information.

Iconic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Echoic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, recalling sounds and words within 3 or 4 seconds.

Shallow Processing

Encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.

Deep Processing

Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of words; tends to yield the best retention.

Automatic Processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, and of well-learned information.

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system by extracting meaning.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Structural Processing

Learning words by remembering their physical features.

Phonemic Processing

Encoding the sound of words.

Semantic Processing

Thinking about the meaning of words to be learned.

Levels of Processing Model

A model of memory that assumes deeper processing leads to better retention.

Mnemonic Devices

Techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information.

Method of Loci

A mnemonic technique involving associating items with physical locations.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units.

Categories

Networks of associated memories that share common features.

Hierarchies

Complex information broken down into concepts and subcategories.

The Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study to yield better long-term retention.

Memory Consolidation

The gradual process of converting new long-term memories to stable memory codes.

Massed Practice

Cramming.

Distributed Practice

Spacing study periods for better retention.

Serial Position Effect

The tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Primacy Effect

Tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well.

Recency Effect

Tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well.

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information for storage.

Maintenance Rehearsal

Repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them.

Autobiographical Memory

Memory for events and facts related to one's personal life story.

Superior Autobiographical Memory

Near-perfect ability to recall every episodic memory.

Retrograde Amnesia

An inability to retrieve information from one's past.

Alzheimer's Disease

A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by deterioration of memory and reasoning.

Infantile Amnesia

The inability to remember events from early childhood.

Recall

A measure of memory where the person retrieves information learned earlier.

Recognition

The ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored fact.

Retrieval Cues

Stimuli used to bring a memory to consciousness.

Context-Dependent Memory

Theory that information learned in a particular situation is better remembered in that same situation.

Mood-Congruent Memory

The tendency to recall experiences consistent with one's current mood.

State-Dependent Memory

The phenomenon where memory retrieval is most efficient in the same state as memory formation.

Testing Effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving information rather than just rereading.

Meta Cognition

Thinking about thinking.

The Forgetting Curve

Graphs retention and forgetting over time.

Encoding Failure

Failure to process information into memory.

Proactive Interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on recall of new information.

Retroactive Interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on recall of old information.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

The temporary inability to remember something with a feeling it is just out of reach.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Misinformation Effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Source Amnesia

Attributing an event to the wrong source.

Constructive Memory

A process of recalling a generalized schema then adding specific details.

Imagination Inflation

A memory phenomenon where vividly imagining an event increases confidence it occurred.